


We Didn't Start the Fire

by WishingStar



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Panic Attack, fluff ending, or at least my attempt at writing one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 11:13:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3567554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WishingStar/pseuds/WishingStar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark's lab is not the best place for Bucky to have a flashback. Luckily Steve is there to help... mostly...</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Didn't Start the Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sweaterbarnes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweaterbarnes/gifts).



> Written as part of the Steve/Bucky Spring Fling for writer_in_a_TARDIS_blanket, who wanted to see Steve helping Bucky through a panic attack. I don't know much about panic attacks, but I tried to do one justice!
> 
> Title is from the Billy Joel song, which I'm shocked nobody had recommended to Steve by TWS.

They'd taken his left arm. They'd taken his _arm._ Sheer horror whited out everything else: the room around him and the people and how he might've gotten here receded to a meaningless buzz because his arm was _gone,_ hand, fingers, everything—could he learn to shoot a rifle one-handed? Could he be any use at all—

_You said he wouldn't feel any of this!_

_Not a twinge. Neural circuits are shut down and you, my friend, need to chill and let me work. Figuratively speaking. Don't take that the wrong way, I'm not asking you to literally chill—_

When he looked leftward, he saw a mess of exposed wires and charred metal that might be jointed and five-fingered at the end but it was a lie, it was a _lie_. He remembered. He remembered blood on the snow and mangled flesh and splintered bone and the pain and the way the screams caught in his throat—

_Look at his face and tell me he's not feeling it!_

_He's not feeling it, Cap, I swear. Whatever's got him worked up, it isn't a pain response..._

The screams were caught in his throat, he couldn't get them out and couldn't take air in, couldn't breathe—

_Sir, if I might interject—_

_Bucky, can you hear me?_

He needed to get away. Now, while they were distracted by this Bucky person, not focused on him—

_Hey, don't look at me. I've only ever dealt with panic attacks from the other side._

_Bucky—_

—needed to get somewhere safe, find Steve and—

 _Whoa, keep him_ still _, Cap!_

A firm weight thudded into his chest, forcing him back against the hard surface he hadn't been aware of leaving. He swatted with his right arm, blindly, until it connected with flesh and was immediately caught, pinned to his side. Something—a hand, a strong one—gripped his chin and wrenched it upward. "Eyes on me, soldier!" someone snapped.

There was a face, hovering inches from his. Blue eyes. _I know him._ The thought seemed well-worn, somehow, as if he were playing out a familiar script. _I know him. What comes next?_ He needed to remember—

"Tell me what year it is."

 _1945_ —but no. There was a before and an after, and 1945 had been before—before what—

"Okay, bad question. We'll come back to that one. Tell me your name."

"James Buchanan Barnes." It slipped out; he had that much. But there was more. "Sergeant. 3255—"

3255—

He didn't know it, he'd _lost_ it, they were taking everything—

"32557038," the face above his rattled off, and that was _right_ , he could've wept—"Now say it back to me."

"32557038." Something in his chest unraveled, loosening despite his pounding heart. The world was going dark around the edges and he might just be dying but they hadn't, they hadn't taken everything—"That's mine. The number. It's mine."

"Yeah, it's all yours. You're doing great, Bucky, just breathe, okay? Try to breathe slowly."

 _I thought I was James,_ but it was coming back now. Bucky. Bucky was him? Bucky had two arms— _don't take it, please, please don't take the arm, please don't take it_ \--

"Look at me, Buck, nobody's taking anything. You're fine. It's all fine. Don't look around, look at me, I got you. I got you." Steve kept a hand pressed to the side of his jaw, blocking his view to the left.

"Steve." Those blue eyes softened incrementally, like it meant something that Bucky had said the name. Maybe he thought Bucky had forgotten it. Maybe Bucky had, for a minute there. But he had a more urgent consideration right now. "Steve, my arm—"

"Your arm's fine. It's still there, I promise. Stark is fixing it for you."

"Stark?" Stark. Not a doctor. SSR. But there'd been another one—father? Son. Not a doctor either, worked in metal—and had fixed Bucky's arm before. "Tony?" Bucky ventured.

"Yeah, Tony Stark. You remember him. He's good, he'll have you right as rain in no time."

"I ought to be offended by that," Stark muttered absently, beyond his line of sight. "I'm not good, I'm the best there is. I'm superlative. Almost done here."

Howard had been before, and Tony was after, which meant—"It's 2015."

Steve smiled faintly. "You back with us?"

Bucky risked a jerky nod. Steve allowed it. He didn't try to look left. "It's 2015. We're in Avengers Tower in Manhattan. My arm was... sparking?"

"Like the Fourth of July," Stark confirmed. "When, in an uncharacteristic bout of self-preservation, you agreed to let me fix the wiring _before_ it escalated into a full-blown electrical fire. Just let me wrap up this connection..."

In the ensuing lull, Steve dropped a kiss on Bucky's forehead. Then one on the corner of his mouth.  
"I did not see that," Stark muttered. "I am not thinking about what that meant. I do not need any further information." Then, "Are you ready to bring the neural circuits back online?"

Bucky's heart skipped a beat. "I—yes. Please." He tried not to sound desperate. He believed what Steve said, obviously, but he still _felt_ nothing but empty space on his left side, and he still didn't dare look.

"Resetting in three, two, one—"

A searing bolt of lightning ran up Bucky's left arm, clenching every cable. He felt it jerk, shaking his whole body. He felt it _move_. The burning sensation vanished. Bucky raised his hand into his field of vision, just to watch it respond to his thoughts.

"Give it a wave, test the proprioception."

Boring. Bucky opted instead to test his proprioception by grabbing a handful of Steve's hair and guiding him into a kiss. Their lips met gently on the first try—yup, everything in order. And if Steve took Bucky's highly scientific test as an invitation to nibble at his lower lip, well, science always involved calculated risk, didn't it? Bucky slid his hand down to the back of Steve's neck—to check the sensory input, or something like that, it sounded good anyway—and half-listened to the indignant sputtering coming from his left.

"Oh, no, you don't. Not in my lab. This lab is an intimacy-free zone, it says so on the door. Does it? I'm putting a sign on that door. Get out of my lab, ingrates. Don't make me sic the robots on you."

Steve chuckled through his nose and shifted more of his weight onto Bucky.

"You guys? I'm serious. Dum-E has a fire extinguisher and you know how he loves using it..."

Fleeing a fire-retardant-spewing robot through the halls of Avengers Tower, Steve whooping at his side as they ran, was not how Bucky had planned on ending his day. But it was definitely worth the mess.


End file.
